TRIAL BY HELLFIRE
(part one)

FROM THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF DAPHNE POPADOPOLOUS:

Always have I heard the secret voices of the Green Ones...ever since I was born, really. One of my earliest memories is the sound of the whispering oak tree outside my bedroom window. Though plants generally don't have a sense of being either feminine nor masculine, the ancient tree always sounded like a wise old grandfather with a wonderful baritone voice, albeit wheezy--especially whenever he sang. He was fond of sea chanties, though, and I recall shocking my mother when I was about four years old or so when I once sang one of The Grandfather's--ahem--saltier songs out loud.

My name is Daphne Popadopolous, and I'm a mutant. My father, Stefan, is a doctor and my mother, Penelope, is his wife. They are both very traditional, for all that they, too, were born and bred in Boston, Massachusetts; the family goes to Greece for the summer to check in on our dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles that still live there.

I have, through the grace of the Internet and some published works by Professor Charles Xavier, subsequently discovered that I'm what he describes as a "precocious mutant"...that is, I am a member of homo superior whose powers surfaced before puberty. That's why I was always able to understand the language of plants.

My parents were alternately pleased and worried about my behavior as a child...from a very early age, my mother discovered that I could be left in the backyard without some adult hovering over me to make sure that I wouldn't get hurt or into some kind of trouble. She never realized that I didn't need to have any human adults to do that because I was surrounded by adult trees and bushes who were more than happy to let me know about imminent dangers and things I was about to do wrong. It was like living with a platoon of Mary Poppinses for the first five years of my life! No privacy, but I matured very quickly and I learned a lot of historical trivia from the long-lived trees (like Samuel Adams' rather juvenile habit of breaking wind and pretending that the culprit was his brother John).

Communicating with plants is not my only power. The Grandfather says that I have an "earthlink"...that I am attuned to the earth and everything in it--all that the earth can do, so can I. It was no big deal for me to pick up a heavy rock...not when I could manipulate the effect of gravity upon it. Warping the silverware at our house was not unusual, either--only I wasn't using mythical "mind waves" like that Geller man...I was subconsciously generating magnetic fields. And my temper tantrums could end up rattling the windows (literally!), because I could control the movement of the ground beneath the house.

But I learned very quickly to suppress such shows of my powers--first (and most importantly) because those events frightened Mama and Papa, and second because, one day when I was about three, The Grandfather summoned me to him. Since it was about 10 o'clock at night and way past my bedtime, I opened up the bedroom window and climbed out onto the branch he extended to me, holding tight as he moved it back into place.

*Look, young one--down the street and across from this side...do you see?* The Grandfather's baritone was especially grave. I squinted and focused on the scene--men in suits surrounding a teenaged boy who was glowing red then yellow then blue. I recognized Timmy Murdock because he played with my brother Jason...and he looked scared as his glow continued to cycle through the color change. One of the men grabbed Timmy while another put a pair of oversized handcuffs on him...and the glowing stopped. Timmy was whisked away into a waiting van.

*I see, Grandfather...but what's wrong?* I thought back to the oak. *Why did the men take Timmy away?*

*They took him away because he was glowing...humans don't glow...but mutants do, sometimes.* he answered.

*But Timmy looked pretty when he glowed!* I argued. *Why should he be taken away?*

*Humans fear mutants.* The Grandfather wheezed sadly. *It makes no difference whether the mutant is a good one or a bad one--humans are afraid and they weed out the undesirables.*

*That's so sad...Timmy's mama and papa will miss him!* I replied, hugging The Grandfather's trunk tightly. *But Timmy is Jason's friend...why did you show me this, Grandfather?*

*The hydrangea across the street says that those men found Timmy with a device that can detect mutants, young Daphne...you must not use your earthlink for the next week or so, else the next child those men will take away will be you!*

Ever since that night, I made it a point to never lose control of my more physical powers. Communing with plants made it easier for me to meditate upon the need for subtlety and control, so I spent the next ten or so years of my life establishing the proper rapport with such abilities, but I never used them on a regular basis for fear of activating someone's "mutant detector". My family was more than happy to dismiss the early shows of my powers as flukes or coincidences.

Until about the time of my tenth birthday.

It was the summer that I turned ten that the secret of my mutantcy came out. I went to bed early one night, feeling cranky and a bit feverish. Papa was a little concerned, but his training as a doctor told him that I was probably experiencing the first throes of puberty, early as it may seem, and he mused that the upcoming year would be a most interesting one for me.

The next morning I woke everyone in the house with my screams. My parents came running into my room and were flabbergasted to find that, instead of their 4'7" tall ten-year-old daughter, there was a 5'2" tall young woman. Papa had to give me a sedative and he came to several conclusions while I was knocked out:

First, I was mutant (boy, isn't he smart?)--second, that some aspect of my mutant DNA had called for the sudden hyper-production of the hormones that trigger physical maturity, and third--I could no longer live in the United States with my parents.

Papa is a very successful doctor...he and my Uncle Theo run a small chain of diagnostic laboratories, so he had the nearly-perfect resources to run tests on my exact physical condition. Being my Papa, he did NOT like the results, though.

It seems that a side effect of my powers is that I have a reproductive system that is in overdrive--no, make that warp speed! Normally it takes a human female at least a year to almost three years or so to go from the onset of puberty to fully develop into a mature young woman capable of having babies...I made that transition in less than eight hours. And the bad news didn't stop there. My mutant physiology is primed for reproduction--tests confirmed that there was no kind of birth control pill or medicine that can counteract my body's automatic need to produce offspring. My reproductive system is alarmingly aggressive--my body produces massive amounts of pheramones in an effort to attract potential mates, and any semen present within me is almost literally jumped(!) on and made to produce an embryo. Papa's tests have led him to believe that, as a result, every time I had sex with a man I would get pregnant...and even that such a pregnancy would have a 99.45% chance of being a multiple birth!

All of that was overwhelming (heck, it still is!), but the worst news at that time was that Papa knew he couldn't afford to keep me in the house because he, himself, felt the lure of my hyper-pheramones...it had taken all his personal strength of will not to give in to the overriding natural compulsion to mate with me, and that, he said, was mostly because Mama was present. My adolescent brothers would not have that same control, he knew, and he didn't want the family to be ripped apart by such a tragedy. Besides, my Uncle Stavros--actually, he's Papa's cousin, but I'm always supposed to call him "Uncle"--works for the government...he and Papa spoke about my being a mutant, and Uncle Stav said that, until I got the pheramones under control, I would be safest out of the United States. I didn't find out why he thought that until years later.

So Mama and I went to Greece, to live with Aunt Helena (this one is Mama's great-aunt). Helena was a sixty-ish-year-old widow with two daughters and three grand-daughters living in her mountain retreat. They were told about my problem and agreed to help raise me until such time (if any) that my father could develop a way for me to safely live with the family back in Massachusetts.

The next three years were hard, because I missed my father and brothers so. Mama stayed with me in Greece, though I was able to persuade her to visit Papa a couple times a year. Aunt Helena and my female cousins were very understanding and very good company. I kept to the grounds of Helena's estate as much as possible, since all the women warned that I couldn't afford to meet with men. They never said why--not until after the incident with Nikos the goatherd.

Nikos was a nice boy, really--eighteen and dating cousin Priscilla. Some of the goats he was looking after had gone up the mountain, though, and he went after them like he was supposed to. I was playing--pretending that I could fly high above everything--when we encountered each other.

It started off civil enough--he obviously had no interest in anyone other than Priscilla...not until he caught a whiff of my mutant pheramones. One minute we were talking about where his goats might have gone, then--WHAM! He was on me and touching me everywhere and tearing at my clothes. I didn't understand and I couldn't get away and I screamed my head off. I managed to punch him in the face and my cousins came running just then. Priscilla was angry at Nikos (and amazed that I had punched him clear across the meadow), but by then the whispering comforts of the local flora had put everything into perspective and I wasn't as upset at his behavior. It was the pheramones, after all, and not Nikos' conscious will at work.

Papa was finally able to develop a serum that counteracted the industrial-strength pheramones that I suffer from. It had taken so long, he said, because he had to find a combination of chemicals that worked--chemicals that did not come from plants, because nothing that is derived from plants can effect me (another bonus to being able to communicate with and control plants). So he gave me the serum--which I have to take every day--and I came home to Boston.

When I arrived in the United States, Papa gave me two "welcome home presents"--the first was a wristwatch. It was special because Uncle Stav made it. Stavros, it turns out, is a hardware specialist for the United States government, and had the inside info on some top-secret project that was supposed to be in the works to monitor mutants. Stav was able to make a device and fashion it so that it appeared to be a regular wristwatch. The device would counteract mutant detection devices, he said, but only if I did not use my powers...as long as I did nothing more than reply to plants, it would shield me from discovery.

The second present was just as necessary though I did not like it (I still don't!!!)--it was a minimizing foundation garment. I had already been the subject of many stares, leers and outright passes from strange men. The pheromones may have been under control, but I still looked like a petite Dolly Parton--I'm only five-feet-two-and-a-quarter inches tall but I wear a D cup and my measurements are 42-26-36! Much as I hated the idea of having to do it, I knew that I was never going to have even the semblance of a normal life if I didn't wear the thing. (I still think that Papa must have been in his overprotective father mode when he had it made, because instead of looking like a top-heavy hourglass, my figure in the garment looks like a rather skinny pear -- with no ass, yet!!!)

I spent the rest of that year with my family, taking my serum and participating in track at school...which was tough to do, given that I couldn't afford to shower with the other girls or my true physique would no longer be secret. Papa says that was the first and last time I would be allowed to do that, since I had a close call in the showers once. Still, I managed to win the state track and field competition for my age group, and I cherish those memories.

So here I am...its late August and I'm on the exclusively chartered bus to the exclusively attended Massachusetts Academy. The tall blonde girl in the sumptuously upholstered reclining seat beside mine is very friendly and talking a mile a minute. The others on the bus seem to be just as nice, too. I can see myself fitting in...spending the next school year as a nice, normal freshman in the high school section of the Academy.

I like the idea of that--one whole school year without even thinking about my mutant powers! All right!!!!!

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"Popadopolous?" the tall, fair-haired adult called out as he looked sharply up and down the haphazardly-formed line of teenagers beside the private bus that had just brought them here to the exclusive Massachusetts Academy. "Daphne Popadopolous?"

"Here, sir!" the voice was confident without being cheeky, although heaven knew that the girl who'd answered looked entirely too young to be here, thought the teacher as he eyed the petite brunette.

Daphne Popadopolous was about five-foot...two, maybe--her classic features, dusky skin and brightly intelligent hazel eyes indicative of her Greek heritage. Her nut-brown hair was straight and reached well past her shoulder blades, but what made her appear so youthful was the slender build of her body--most other fourteen-year-old girls had at least the beginnings of some kind of figure, but Daphne was still--to put it in a bluntly chauvinistic way--flat as a board. Still, just from the aura and attitude she radiated, the man could tell that she was going to be a model student...a model regular student, he reminded himself with an oblique glance at the "model" special students loitering on and/or by the modified picket fence some ten yards away.

If Daphne had been a special student, she'd have been in a private limousine instead of the so-called "common" bus the other students were transported to the Academy in. Marcus Tanner thought that it was probably just as well, for she was obviously a cut above The Clique, as the regular students referred to the privileged few who were under the wing of Miss Emma Frost, the revered and intimidating headmistress of the school.

Marcus was officially a physical education instructor for the Academy, but both he and the school were not exactly what they appeared to be to the world at large. He was a bionically-enhanced mercenary in the employ of the Hellfire Club--another organization that was not completely up front with the public about what its motives were...the Hellfire Club appeared to be an exclusive social club for the rich and powerful. In reality it was a means for the club's Inner Circle to garner money and contacts from its unsuspecting members. The Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club was dedicated to gathering economic and political power unto itself, by any means available, whether or not it was either legal or moral.

The Massachusetts Academy was run by one of the most powerful members of that august enclave--Emma Frost was the White Queen of the Inner Circle. Her prowess as a mutant telepath was second to none as far as Marcus knew, and perfect for the ferreting out and indoctrination of adolescent mutants into the workings of the Inner Circle. The six teenagers by the fence were destined to become the newest Black or White position-holders in the Inner Circle, provided they proved their loyalty to the Hellfire Club and its credo.

Marcus Tanner looked back at Daphne Popadopolous, sensing that the girl was something special, and--oddly (considering he was himself supposed to be loyal to the Inner Circle)--relieved that the little Greek was to be spared getting involved in the sordid machinations of the White Queen and her pet students, the Hellions.

"You--" the phys-ed teacher addressed her with a tilted eyebrow,"--are assigned to Franklin Dormitory, Room Eight!" He checked off her name from the list on his clipboard. "You look like you'll do well in my gymnastics program, Daphne--got any experience?" For a moment, the girl's face looked as though it were glowing from within, then she sighed and shook her head.

"I have the paperwork the school requires to excuse me from physical education classes and programs." she said, her every word dripping regret. Marcus was surprised; the girl looked healthy and she certainly was slender enough to do extremely well in gymnastics...but then again, nowadays looking healthy didn't automatically mean a person truly was healthy. Still, Marcus had the nagging feeling he'd seen her face before, connected to a sports event of some kind...then he shrugged.

"Too bad, Daphne--just drop it off at the physician's office and he'll forward me the confirmation of your exclusion."

"Yes, sir." Daphne watched the muscular teacher shift his attention to finding... "Preston, Robert A. ..?" with a wistful longing. It had been decided last year that it was too dangerous for her to participate in sports--too great a risk of having her true physical condition discovered--and so her father had written up the papers required for being dismissed from physical education classes and such.

"Hi ya, roomie!" the bright though slightly squeaky voice of a bouncy blonde interrupted Daphne's reverie. She looked up to see her exact physical opposite grinning at her. "Name's Marissa Davenport! According to Tanner over there--" the girl jerked a thumb in the fair-haired teacher's direction, "--we've been assigned to the same room in the Franklin Dorm."

"Hi, Marissa...I'm Daphne Popadopolous..." They shook hands briefly. Daphne compared her tiny, artificially-slenderized self to the tall, curvy blonde whose short, bouncy hairstyle made her look like a giant Shirley Temple look-alike...yet something about Marissa's sunny personality and exuberance allowed the blonde to carry off the incongruous image successfully.

"Let's see if we can't locate our luggage in this horrendous mountain of leather and vinyl..." Marissa said, turning towards where a couple of men were unloading the bus' baggage compartment. Daphne groaned.

"When I first learned that the Massachusetts Academy had its own tour bus and allowed you to take all the luggage you deemed necessary--" the brunette said on a sigh, "--I forgot to think everybody else on the bus would take advantage of it, too." Marissa's laugh was loud but pleasant.

"You should see it when the buses get back from the weekly trips to the malls!" she told the petite Greek knowingly, "One bus is for people--one bus is for the stuff they get!" She winked a saucy sapphire eye. Daphne gaped at the information. "Ah, newbies--gotta love 'em!"

"Newbies?" echoed Daphne questioningly.

"First-time students are called 'newbies.'" Marissa explained as she eyed pieces of luggage. "I should know--I was a newbie only last year...that's my cosmetic bag...I think..." The blonde snagged an expensive-looking tapestry-covered case and checked its tag, crowing in triumph when it turned out to be hers after all.

*they watch you!* The breezy voices that sounded in unison could only be the grass Daphne was standing on. She wiggled her toes--she was wearing sandals--and mentally asked who was watching her.

*the six by the dead ones.* was the reply. Daphne glanced nonchalantly around her, spotting six people--they looked to be mostly students like herself--sitting on or standing by a nearby fence. Since the fence was made from wood, it had to be what the grass was referring to as "the dead ones."

Right to left, there was a girl perched upon a fence post with almost feline grace--she had a long, willowy look to her and the most unusual coloring Daphne had ever seen: silver-white hair and purple eyes. Standing next to her was a pretty redheaded girl whose hand hovered constantly over her denim jacket's right pocket. Leaning on his elbows upon the topmost rail of the fence was a dusky-skinned boy of Arab ancestry. Next to him, yet radiating a very standoffish mien, was a tall, slender boy with patrician features. Then there was a very, very pretty platinum blonde talking to a tall, broad-shouldered young man of Native American descent...

Eyes the color of the fertile planet met those the hue of the moonless midnight sky, and Daphne forgot that there was anybody else alive--hell, she forgot to breathe--and a single name for the male she was looking at crowded out all other possible thoughts:

'Tauros!' A man-bull, though not like a minotaur--"tauros" was a very earthy reference to a man's physical stamina! She didn't even know his name, yet Daphne knew instinctively that this young man was Tauros--she could feel it right down to her--

"I said--" the slightly annoyed voice of Marissa startled the little Greek into jumping and turning away from the group at the fence,"--what does your luggage look like..?" The brunette stammered a description and added that she already had her carry-on with her, she just needed the other two suitcases.

"Only two?" Marissa demanded teasingly. "Even if your lack of laissez-faire attitude hadn't proclaimed you to be a humble newbie, the amount of your luggage is a dead giveaway!" They chuckled as the blonde toed one of her six large bags.

"Umm...Marissa...who are those guys?" Daphne asked. "The ones by the fence?" The other girl looked over her shoulder, then froze.

"Them? My God, girlfriend, they are The Clique!"

"Zee Cleek?" the newbie echoed phonetically.

"No, no, no!" corrected Marissa. "The Clique, both words capitalized and pronounced with a bad French accent." Daphne looked from the coterie to Marissa and back.

"Why?"

"Because they all happen to be Frosty's pets."

"Frosty..?"

"Miss Frost to us plebians, dear." Marissa said derisively, then tossed her head. "She definitely dotes on those guys--but, out of all of 'em, only Manny is the really bad seed." Daphne's glance was curious, so the blonde pointed out who was whom.

According to Marissa, the willowy girl was Sharon, and very shy. The redhead was Marie-Ange, originally from Paris and only slightly less shy than Sharon. The Arab boy was Haroun, and he was supposed to be the son of a real Berber sheik. The slender, brown-haired boy was Manny--the bad seed--and he claimed to be the son of a Spanish nobleman. The platinum blonde was Jennifer and she was a killer card sharp.

"And the dreamboat on the end--his name is James Proudstar." Marissa said, sighing dreamily. "He's a senior in the high school part of MassAcad, and every girl with a drop of heterosexual blood in her wants that big, bad Apache to carry her off to his teepee..." Again the blonde sighed melodramatically. "At least, I know I do!" A flare of jealousy appeared, but then Daphne had to admit that it was only natural that Marissa would be attracted to James, and she laughed out loud because Daphne was herself having that very same fantasy.

"Let's just find our bags and get, okay?" Daphne said and turned back to the pile of luggage with good humor. Marissa spotted one of the Greek's bags while Daphne snagged the other. Then they spent a few moments waiting for one of the guys unloading the bus to get a free second so Marissa could have him haul the four pieces of her luggage she wouldn't be carrying herself to their dorm room. Then the perky blonde grabbed her suit bag and her cosmetic case.

"C'mon, newbie!" Marissa ordered with comic imperiousness. Daphne went to retrieve her other case.

*back! they attack!* the grass warned suddenly and Daphne jumped backwards immediately--a black disc zipped through the space she'd occupied and hit the side of the cosmetic case Marissa was holding.

"What th--" the tall blonde gasped as the sturdy handle of her case seemed to burst apart, causing the luggage to crash to the ground with the telltale sound of glass shattering within it. "Oh, no!" Marissa dropped the garment bag and wrenched open the case, causing a nearly-noxious cloud of Chanel No.5 to envelope the area. Coughing, Daphne backed up a couple of steps and swiveled her head to where The Clique was grouped by the fence.

'Which one attacked?' the petite Greek asked her green friends. The grass described the platinum blonde girl--Jennifer. Daphne's hazel eyes narrowed as she glanced daggers at the Cliquer. 'Bitch!' As she helped Marissa shut up her ruined case and gather the luggage they would be bearing to their room, Daphne asked the grass what The Clique was doing now. She looked over to see James Proudstar speaking forcefully to Jennifer.

*the man doesn't like what the girl has done...he asks "what if somebody'd seen you pull that stunt?" the girl says "nobody saw me!" but the man still is not pleased.*

"Okay, roomie," Marissa's voice broke in, "Let's blow this popstand!" Daphne followed the taller girl, throwing one last black look in Jennifer's direction. She didn't like being watched and definitely did not like being attacked, and planned to keep her distance from all members of The Clique. Even James Proudstar...

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